


of gods and monsters

by litams



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-28 22:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8464924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litams/pseuds/litams
Summary: The New Age started out pitch black. The gods made humankind in their image; they too were vengeful, demanding, murderous. When humans stopped believing in them, the gods took the light away.A woman negotiated it back. A man has made it his duty to keep it on. And one boy could make or break it all.(semi magic au)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> -many thanks to SashaSea, my lord and savior, who beta read this  
> -read her fanfic dangerous magics, it will change your life  
> -i'm obviously not very good at summaries, sorry  
> -thanks for reading!

They say humans were created in God’s image,  
good at their core,  
apt to forgive,  
capable of kindness.  
But in God’s image, they were also  
vengeful,  
demanding,  
murderous.

 

___

In the old world, the gods stopped talking to humankind, and humankind forgot about them. Worship fell out of fashion as humans started understanding how the world worked, and as things that used to appear as miracles became natural phenomena easy to understand and explain. Houses of faith started closing down, holy days became regular days, people stopped teaching their young the ways of the old faiths. It didn’t happen all at once, but eventually, believers became almost extinct.

On one September day of the year 1972, the very last believer died. She was an old woman of an old clan, in the remote town of Tichla, Western Sahara. She was born of a people of believers, and every morning she’d lived, she did all the things she’d been taught to do before her days started. She’d offer salt to the gods of the wind, freshwater to the spirits of sand, say a blessing for the _kanzif_ , the essence of mother nature. And every night, before going to bed, she’d leave a plate of clean bones outside her door for the dark spirits, for she’d been taught they kept the universe in balance.  
She did all those rituals on that day, then she went home, lay down, and died peacefully.  
The next day, the gods spoke again.

 

___

 

The last person alive to survive the old world, the Darkness and live into the return of the Light was an old man by the name of Pablo Flores. He died twenty-three years into the New Age. On his death bed, his daughter asked; ‘Papa, what was it like, on the last day ?’  
His eyes, which had been blind for twenty-three years, seemed to see beyond the small hospital room when he answered;  
‘I saw a woman made of light, she was scary but beautiful. I asked her if she was an angel; she laughed and it sounded like thunder. She said she was a god.’  
‘Were you scared?’  
‘No. She said she would spare my life.’  
‘What happened next?’  
‘She raised her finger to the sky and flicked it at the sun. Then she asked me to keep watch for nine minutes, and to try to enjoy the sunlight.’  
‘And then?’  
‘Nine minutes passed, then everything went black.’

 

___

 

The new age started out pitch black. The gods made humankind in their image; they too were vengeful, demanding, murderous. When humans stopped believing in them, the gods took the light away.

It’s an old myth that gods need no sustenance. Gods feed off worship: the more they’re believed in, the stronger they are. When the worship dies out, a god is as mortal as its creation. Who came first, then, some ask? The chicken or the egg? The creator or its creation?  
They say the first god thought himself into existence.

 

The new age started out pitch black and remained that way for two decades. The people who remember the sun disappearing will tell you of the panic, the television programs being interrupted for special announcements, the scientists who were flown into the USA from all over the world to try and figure out life on an earth that was no longer orbiting the sun. Their predictions were grim, and they all came true: Temperatures dropped dramatically within days. It had been summer in the northern hemisphere – it froze in less than two weeks. Nuclear-powered habitats were put in place in countries that had access to them; some succeeded in time, some didn’t.  
By the end of the first year of Darkness, all the oceans had frozen over, billions had died, most animal species were extinct, and there remained only sixteen living factions of humans around the world. Two of them were in the United States, both nuclear. One was in Iceland, where they harnessed geothermal energy from volcanoes. Life outside was no longer possible since the atmosphere froze and fell to earth.

Over the years, the US factions were able to slowly expand the main bunkers, until it was a small underground city housing the remaining 6000 survivors in North America, located somewhere in former Southern Virginia. Humans did what they did best and survived; over time, a semblance of civilization started forming. A voting system was enacted to make decisions on communal issues, a weekly market-like assembly was held for people to barter all sorts of personal works, from knitted scarves to salvaged books, toys or dvds. Scientists continued working on genetically modifying more plant stems that could grow without traditional photosynthesis – the taste of the one tuberous crop they’d already come up with was getting old. One bunker room was made into a makeshift hospital, where the fifteen surviving doctors took turns working. Another was turned into a media room, filled with whatever books, music and movies were rescued during the big move.  
Children started being born again. 

Humans lived that way for twenty years. Elders died and children were born, but the most famous person to live through the Darkness was an Irish woman by the name of Kayleigh. 

Kayleigh and her parents were on vacation in New York in the summer of 1972, when the sun went out. She was rescued by a search party in Maryland, and didn’t remember how she got there. She was missing two toes on her left foot and a last name – when they rescued her from the frozen outdoors, her toes was frostbitten and her memories were fuzzy. She lost the toes, and never bothered with a family name. 

The bunkers consisted of three main sections. They were soberly called Work, Life and Survival. The work section contained several smaller units that were given to people who had useful skills. You could find the hospital and the kitchen there, but also seamstresses, teachers, bakers and all sorts of small trades. Someone had set up a carpentry shop and made small furniture for people who needed it. A former electrical engineering student fixed people’s laptop and small electronics. A little boy sat in one of the empty shops and offered to sing happy songs to anyone who felt sad (his shop proved very popular).

The survival section was where all the labs and nuclear engines were. It housed all the scientists who worked on making this new mode of life functional, from biologists working on ways to create lab made edible plants, to nuclear scientists maintaining the engines that provided light and heat to the bunkers.

The life section was the housing unit. It was set in a way that allowed the few surviving families to regroup, but didn’t isolate the many people who survived alone. Two of the units were allocated to the children living in the bunkers without any family, whether they were rescued by search parties or that their parents used their last breath to get them to safety. That’s where Kayleigh lived.

On her first night, a hushed voice asked her in the dark: “Are you scared?”  
She answered: “My mum says I’m fearless.”

On her third day, a little boy sat next to her in English class, which was held in Work and consisted of three teachers going around and helping all 36 kids with standard English homework.  
She turned her head to give him an examining look. His hair was black and a bit too long, falling over his eyes. He was thinner than her, but she was satisfied to notice he was not taller. (Back home, she liked being the tallest of her friends, and when her classmate Moira sprouted suddenly, she had to unfriend her. The offense was intolerable.)

“Why aren’t you doing your homework?” she asked.

The boy shrugged. “I don’t know how to write English.”

Kayleigh’s eyes opened wide. “How come?”

“I’m from Japan.”  
“I’ve never met anyone from Japan.”  
“Where are you from?”  
“Ireland.”

The boy gave her a quick look then averted his eyes to his blank homework again.

“Is that why you speak funny?”  
“I don’t speak funny!” She took a minute to consider this new information, then noted: “You’re the one who asked me if I was scared the other night.”  
“Yes.”  
“Well, were /you/?”  
“..No.”

Kayleigh didn’t press the matter. She gave him a puzzled look, then went back to doing her homework.  
At the end of class, she caught up to the boy on their way back to Life. 

“Hey, what’s your name?”  
“Tetsuji.”  
“I’m Kayleigh!”  
“I know. Nice to meet you.” He bowed his head quickly.  
“You too.”

They walked in silence for a minute, then she asked again:

“Are you going to join your friends?”  
“No. I don’t have friends here.”  
“Me neither. Do you wanna be mine?”

The boy looked at her in silence, then nodded. Kayleigh was unphased by his lack of enthusiasm. She grabbed his hand.

“A girl told me there’s a moon door up the last stairs, and you can see outside from it. Let’s go see!”

 

 

 

Years later, Kayleigh became the most famous person to live in the New Age. People called her Kayleigh Day, the woman who brought back the sunlight. 

 

 

___

It happened at 11pm on a Thursday evening, on Kevin’s shift.  
He blinked, looking at it for a few seconds before he snapped out of his haze and started running towards Castle Evermore. The guards let him in, and he ran up the stairs, down the corridors, until he reached Riko’s door. He knocked twice then let himself in, a bad idea under usual circumstances, but in this instance and this one only, he knew Riko wouldn’t mind. He approached the bed and (gently) shook Riko awake. The reaction was instantaneous, fingers digging hard into his wrist and furious eyes looking at him. 

“It went out, Riko.”  
“The flame?”  
“Yes, the flame. It went out, five minutes ago.”

Riko got up, fumbling to find his clothes, ran his fingers through his hair.

“I have to go wake the Master.”

Castle Evermore was a structure from before the Darkness. Kevin, who read history books in what little spare time the Ravenhood allowed him, could’ve surmised that it was not a castle but a gothic structure, but he valued the lack of scars other than the tattoo on his face, so he kept his mouth shut. The property was the size of a big neighborhood, fortified walls surrounding its gardens. The building itself had a square perimeter lodged in between four towers, referred to by the cardinal points they occupied.  
Kevin followed Riko to North, where the Master’s quarters were. He stopped before the main entrance and waited for them to come out. Tetsuji didn’t acknowledge his presence, but Kevin was used to that. He followed the Moriyamas downstairs.  
Tetsuji led them to the sanctuary, where he verified for himself that the flame had gone out. Only then did he turn to the boys.

“Wake the others. I expect everyone here, clean and alert, in 30 minutes.”  
“‘Yes, Master.”

Riko predictably sent Kevin to wake the others on his own. He’d said he needed to prepare the ceremonial artifacts, but Kevin suspected he needed time to compose himself. The fact that he offered an explanation at all was testimony to his nervousness. Not that Kevin didn’t understand that; Riko was the heir, after all, and though they all expected him to be the Chosen, it wasn’t a fact written in stone. And the alternative to him being chosen when the Master spoke of it as a done deal was terrifying to say the least.  
Kevin pushed the dormitory door open and took a minute to look at the fourteen sleeping bodies of the people he’d shared almost every waking moment with for the last twelve years. Fourteen kids taken from their homes the moment they manifested the Gift (sometimes, a parent might try to hide it, but someone always ended up snitching to the Master). Some of them might end up dead by the end of the week, and he couldn’t tell how he felt about that. There was something strange about growing up with people you bore your soul to, who bore theirs to you, and knowing they would kill you without blinking if ordered to do so. Just as you would.  
He turned the light on. All fourteen ravens sprung upright immediately, but as soon as they realized who had woken them up (him, and not the Master or Riko), complaints started arising.

“The flame went out”, he simply said. “The Master wants everyone in the sanctuary in 25 minutes.”

That got their attention instantly. Kevin picked up his shower bag and headed towards the bathroom. He took a quick shower, then he headed to the Fountain, a bathtub made of black stone, that was built around an underground source. The water in it was flowing constantly, and its color was slightly green. He knelt beside it, scooped some of the water out and rinsed his face, making sure to get it in his eyes, nose and mouth. The sensation was still unpleasant to him, even after all these years. He repeated the process sixteen times, until his eyes felt raw. 

On his way out, Thea stopped him. Thea never looked unphased, but her voice had a tinge of worry to it.

“So, now what?”  
“Now we wait for the Messenger to come.”  
“I meant – what if he doesn’t choose Riko? What if he’s not-”  
“I’m guessing he’ll take out his anger on whoever’s in his reach. Us, most likely.”

They exchanged grim looks at the thought.

“You were around last time the flame was renewed. How did it go?”

Kevin shrugged. “We sat in the sanctuary. The Messenger got the signal and showed up six hours later. The Master burnt the sacred scrolls and the quest was spelled out, the Messenger told the Master who the chosen one was, then he left to fulfill the quest. He came back with the Artifacts, the ceremony was held, he was sacrificed on the altar and the new Guardians were appointed. The whole thing took about a week or so.”

Thea nodded. 

“I really hope they chose Riko.’ Kevin added. ‘If they didn’t, the only one who’ll be safe from his wrath will be the Chosen one.”  
“Hey, if it’s me, I’ll use my newfound holiness to protect you”, she jokingly promised.

 

 

The Sanctuary was a circle-shaped room, built on a meadow, in the woods surrounding the Castle. It had a circular window in the center of the dome, which let the moonlight in. The walls were black, covered in red tapestry that told the stories of the gods in forgotten languages all Ravens could read. The Artifacts from previous renewals were carefully hung where they fit in the stories.  
In the center of the room, there was a marble pool, filled with the same greenish water, and in the middle of it, a stone altar, which held a golden cup. A bright flame usually burned in it, and was guarded at all times.

All sixteen Ravens pooled into the sanctuary, and kneeled one by one in rows, forming a half circle around the altar. Tetsuji, standing on the other side of the pool, dipped his hand in the water, then passed amongst them, wiping a wet thumb on each of their foreheads. They closed their eyes, and the crows began to sound. The waiting had started.

 

 

____

In a different part of the same city, a young man woke up to a bird-like apparition floating over his bed. The apparition was grey and smoldering, like it was made of burning coals. It opened a mouth that looked like a black hole, then went up in flames, and nothing was left of it but ashes falling on the blue blanket, and a tightly rolled scroll in his lap. A voice sounded in the room, delayed like thunder after lightning:

“Messenger, you’ve been marked.”

Neil Josten rubbed his eyes, squinting at where the thing -whatever the fuck it was- was floating seconds before. He yawned, picked the scroll up and looked at it for a few seconds, then decided out loud:

“Fuck _that_.”

Then he threw the scroll away, and went back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sorry that this chapter is kind of hectic, the next ones will be smoother in terms of flow.  
> -More foxes scheduled to appear soon (!)  
> -thank you so much for reading! <3

Chapter II

 

 

Neil overslept.  
He didn’t think he did, though: When he woke up, it was still dark out. He checked the clock on his bedside table, which told him it was 9am.  
A softly whispered “what the fuck?” was all the reaction that got out of him, as he got up and went to the window to check the street, pulling a tiny corner of the curtains carefully. The sky was barely lit, like it was dawn. Outside, people were going about their regular business, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“What the fuck,” he whispered again.   
He decided he might be able to think about it more clearly after a cup of coffee. He went to the kitchen, turned the machine on and opened the window, where an orange cat was waiting. Neil scratched his head and didn’t seem very phased when the cat jumped inside and walked along on the counter, stopping in front of a closed cabinet and meowing demandingly. Neil retrieved a can of tuna from said cabinet, opened it and set it on the floor for the cat to eat.   
He filled his cup and sat down at the table, thinking. He could just walk downstairs and ask the first person he met. People seemed to be down with this almost sunless program, they surely knew what was happening. But that could also be a problem: Not knowing would make him suspicious, and for a runaway like Neil, suspicious was the last thing he wanted to seem like. Still, he wondered how they could all know if he didn’t. He made a point never to miss the news, and he read the newspaper every day. If there had been a scientific warning of the “hey, b-t-w, the sun is gonna take a nap but worry not it’ll be back!” persuasion, he’d have heard of it.   
There was also another matter to think about. If the sun truly was on its way out, then he had to consider the fact that perhaps his parents hadn’t lied to him all these years. That he grew up in a dark basement because there was no life outside of it, and not because of some sick psychological trick his father had played on him. When Neil escaped, two years before, he’d thought he was running to his death. Instead, he stepped out of the basement to find a warm world outside, full of things he had only seen on screens.

He downed the rest of his coffee and walked back to his room, which wasn’t really his room. He’d been squatting in the building’s basement, which was supposed to be a temporary hideout (too easy to be found) until he realized that this particular basement had two brilliant characteristics: One, it had a backdoor to the alley, and it wasn’t locked. Two, he could hear everything happening in the hallway through the vent almost as clearly as if he were there, which would allow him to grab his backpack and flee the scene if someone was coming towards the door.   
It was through that vent that he heard a Mrs. Walker tell the doorman that she’d be absent for a month, but that her daughter Renee would come in to water the plants. The next day, he heard Renee introduce herself to the same doorman, and tell him that she was there to install automatic drip waterers as she couldn’t come water the plants herself after all. The two had a lengthy conversation about the devices; the doorman asked for a reference to buy the same ones. “What a great little invention!,” he’d commented.   
It didn’t take Neil all that much work to figure out which apartment was Mrs. Walker’s, or how to get inside it without breaking anything. He was the son of a crime family, after all. He’d taken pictures of every corner of the apartment, every table top, even the inside of the fridge, before touching anything. He was careful to wipe down every surface he touched before leaving a room. His prints had no reason to be in the system, but he had learned that excessive prudence was never too much for his kind of lifestyle. Not when he was running from the people he was running from.

In the bedroom, he removed the blue blanket from the bed, folded it and crammed it back inside his bag, then rolled the sleeping bag he had been sleeping on over Mrs. Walker’s perfectly made bed. He picked up his jeans and something rolled from under them and disappeared under the bed. He knelt and stuck his arm in there, retrieving a small tubular object. He brought it closer to the bedside lamp to look at it, and when he saw the scroll, the ridiculous memory of a flaming bird delivering a dramatic line of prophetic nonsense came back to him.

“What the fuck,” he whispered for the third time that morning. A voice almost immediately sounded behind him.  
“Nope, kid, it wasn’t a dream! I bet you wish it was, though, don’t you.”

It took everything Neil had in him not to scream. Instead, he bolted, leaving everything behind, ran to the door and had his hand halfway to the knob before remembering that 9 to 10am was the janitor’s allocated time to vacuum the carpeting in the hallways. He could hear the faint vroom, and the hum of a Swedish song the man sang every morning.   
“Shit, shit, shit.”  
Neil rested his forehead on the door, then walked back to the bedroom (not without grabbing a knife first). He carefully poked his head through the door, looking at all corners. The man couldn’t be anywhere but under the bed – which was a ridiculous place for a killer to be.   
Neil stared at the bed for a few seconds, then attempted an unconvincing “Come out from under there!”  
The voice sounded again behind him, like it did the time before:

“From under where?”

Neil would not be proud recounting this moment, but he jumped, the weirdest squeal sound escaping his mouth. Nothing was behind him. He ran to the living room again, knife in hand. An arm came out of nowhere and in three well executed moves, took the knife from him, twisted his arm and put a knee to his back when he went down. Neil screwed his neck trying to look at his captor. A very unlikely sight was waiting for him.

The person holding him down was a girl, a bit taller than him, and everything about her looked soft, from her features to the pastel dyed tips of her ashy hair. Her grip was not soft, though; Neil tried to move but the immediate jolt of pain that followed dissuaded him from fighting any longer.   
The girl spoke, with a voice as soft as her appearance, and definitely not male and mocking like the previous one had been:

“I’ll let go if you promise you’ll be reasonable and not try to fight me. Okay?”  
“Okay,” Neil muttered.

She freed him, and he sat upright and massaged his shoulder. She really did twist it hard.

“I’m sorry about that, but you’re a stranger in my mother’s home, and you had a knife.”  
“I guess when you present it like that, your reaction seems appropriate,” Neil conceded. “I’m not a thief! I was just... crashing here for a few nights. I needed a place to stay. Please don’t call the cops.”

The girl nodded, then said the strangest thing someone in her situation could say:

“Would you like some tea?”

Neil looked at her, trying to figure her out and failing. He cocked his head to the side.

“I appreciate that you’re being cool, and I should probably just go with it, but: why are you doing this?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean you found me in your house with a knife and you’re offering me tea. I could be a bad person.”

The girl smiled while she poured hot water in the cups she set on the counter.

“Bad is not something you have to be all your life; bad people can become good. I believe in second chances.”

Neil chewed on that strange philosophy while she brought the cups to the table. He got up then sat back down at the table, taking the chair facing her.

“I’m Renee. Do you want to tell me your name?”

Neil’s first instinct was not to, but then again, Neil Josten wasn’t the name his people were looking for.

“Neil.”  
“Nice to meet you, Neil.” She took a sip of her cup, then asked: “Why were you running away from the bedroom anyway?”

With all the agitation, Neil had momentarily forgotten about the intruder. The other intruder. His eyes scanned the room, on alert again.

“Right. Somebody was there, behind me. He was really stealthy, he snuck up on me twice and I never saw him.”

Renee turned her head to look around. “I don’t see anyone. I think we’re alone here.”

“ _Rude_ ,” the voice said.

Neil jumped again. “You heard that, right?”

Renee leaned over the table, her hand sneaking behind his neck. His first instinct was to flinch, but she didn’t touch him, she only retrieved something from his hood.  
The something in question was the size of a figurine, and was furiously struggling, trying to get out of the hold her fingers had on the back of the very tiny t-shirt it was wearing.  
Neil was never the kind of person to become speechless. He had a smart mouth on him, he was known for that, he had gotten in trouble for that, many many times. But in this particular instance, Neil was speechless.  
Renee seemed entirely unphased, as if she was not holding a tiny man by his tiny shirt, a tiny man who was red in the face, his curly hair bouncing every time he struggled, and who tried to bite her fingers.  
She put the tiny man down on the table, and lowered herself so her arms were flat on the surface, and her chin was resting on the back of her hands.

“Hello,” she greeted.

The tiny man, still agitated, shot her a furious look. “You don’t pick someone up by the collar and float them around like a fish on a hook! Damn, who raised you!”

Renee apologized. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”  
“It better not!” 

He adjusted his shirt back, then turned to look at Neil.

“Close your mouth before something flies in it, kid.”

Neil closed his mouth. He wanted to say something, but he had nothing. Absolutely nothing was coming to him.  
The tiny man turned back to Renee.

“Can you slap him? I really really kinda need him to snap out of this and get to work.”  
“Sorry, I don’t hit people anymore.”

She waved a hand in front of Neil’s face. Neil blinked.

“It’s not doing anything,” the tiny man complained. “He’s not snapping out of it. Bit dramatic, kid, don’t you think?”  
“ _I’m_ dramatic?!?” Neil crowed. “He’s a tiny man! He’s a talking walking man the size of a toy soldier! A tiny toy soldier! Why aren’t _you_ more shocked?”

Renee smiled peacefully. “He’s cursed.” She looked at the tiny man, then surmised: “Demigod?”  
The tiny man crinkled his nose. “Now I agree that this one is slow to catch up, but you on the other hand caught up way too fast.”  
He leaned towards her and sniffed in her direction, then took a big step back, hissing: “Witch?”

“Former. But yes, a witch.”  
“A good one or an evil one?”  
“I try to be a good one.”  
“Cool. As long as you don’t try to curse me, I won’t hold your counterparts’ bad reputation against you. Deal?”  
“Deal.”  
“What the fuck,” Neil whispered, and he lost count of how many times he’d said that since he woke up. He waved his hands, nearly swatting the tiny man off the table.  
“Someone explain what the fuck is happening?”

The tiny man looked at him, a sorry look on his face.

“Kid, did you grow up in a hole or something?”  
Kinda, Neil wanted to say. Instead he went with: “Just pretend I did and explain.”

The man sighed.   
“Fine. I’m Nicholas, but you can call me Nicky. I’m your guide throughout the quest you have been assigned.”  
“What quest?”  
“You’re the Messenger.”  
“I don’t know what that means.”  
“The Messenger. The one who knows who the Chosen one is. Who fulfils the quest. As part of the deal made so that humans would get the sun back.”

Neil’s eyes still betrayed his ignorance. Nicky’s widened.

“You’re older than fourteen, aren’t you?” Renee asked.  
“I’m eighteen,” Neil said without thinking.  
“Alright, then you do remember that it used to be dark all the time?”  
“Yes.”  
“And then the sun came back?”  
“Yes.” (He didn’t, not really. The sun as a concept was only a few months old in his mind. He remembered living in that dark house as a child, and finding a box of VHS tapes in a drawer. They all starred a much younger version of his mother in a world full of light that made her hair glow. He hadn’t been able to tell which was more novel: The sun he’d only heard of, or his mother’s beaming face.)

“And did you think that just happened cause Mother Nature is kooky like that?” Nicky asked.  
“Well... yeah? What else.”  
“The gods, kid! You’re killing me.” He turned to Renee. “He knows nothing! How is that even possible?”

Renee was looking at him intently.

“Were you in the western underground city? I don’t remember you.”  
“I wasn’t. I was in the other one.”  
“Which one?”  
“The eastern one,” Neil tried.

Renee got up and came back with a picture that she showed him. It was a portrait of two young men. They both had black hair, were dressed exactly the same, in black and red solemn uniforms, and had the numbers I and II tattooed on their left cheeks.

“Who are they?”  
“Members of a weird cult?” The smart mouth was back, at least.

Renee smiled and Nicky laughed. The latter conceded: “I mean, he’s not wrong.”

“That isn’t what I asked, though. What are their names?”  
“Why would I know that?”  
“Because they too grew up in the eastern underground city. They’re not far from your age, and young kids were always kept together, you should know them.”  
“I was a loner. Went through a goth phase – you understand.”  
“You went through a goth phase when you were four years old.” Renee reprised  
“What can I say, I’ve always been an early bloomer.”

His snark was back, but it wasn’t going to get him far. He couldn’t possibly know much about the bunkers or their inhabitants, because he didn’t grow up there. When the sun went out, his -father- took his young bride to the family his own family served. They had their own bunker, one that was not repertoried anywhere. His father was not a talkative man, nor was he ever a father to him, and his mother was a stern woman, though her severity stemmed from possessive love that came out in all the wrong ways. Sometimes, though, when she drank wine late in the evening and he’d sneak out of bed and next to her, she’d tell him about life in the sun. Not that he had any concept of the things she was saying when she talked of sunlight, and warmth, and beaches and butterflies and grass, but whenever she did, she smiled. And Neil hadn’t seen his mother smile very often.

Nicky snapped his fingers in front of Neil’s face (or as far up as he could reach, which was somewhere in the middle of his chest. The intent was clear, though).

“Earth to Neil Josten. You there?”

Neil shot him a startled look. 

“I never told you my last name.”  
“Nor is it your real one. Did you not hear the whole part about you being marked? The gods know your name.”

Neil didn’t answer that.

“Seriously though, kid, where were you when humans were learning about what’s up in the world?”  
“I don’t know. Where were you when demigods were growing in size?”

Nicky’s eyes widened, hand on his heart. “Ouch! He bites back!”

Renee was observing the scene silently up to there, but she intervened.

“Everyone has secrets. If he doesn’t want to tell, it’s his choice.”  
“As long as he comes along to fulfill this quest that’s already way behind on schedule, I don’t need to know his life story.”  
“Okay, hold up,” Neil interrupted, “What’s this quest thing you keep talking about? I thought that fire bird thing was a dream and I still don’t understand what this whole thing is about.”  
“You thought it was a dream as in: Now that you know it's real, you're reconsidering?"  
“No, like: _Fuck that_ , still. But explain anyway.”

Nicky sighed, then sat down and crossed his legs. 

“Fine. Let’s pretend you were in a coma since your birth and you literally just woke up. So: Long time ago, the gods got pissy about humans not marveling before their infinite beauty anymore, so they threw a tantrum and took the sun away from you guys.”

He paused, giving Neil time to chime in, but Neil was just staring at him like he was talking of flying cows.

“Anyway. You guys found ways to survive underground, many years went by, then a human woman found a way to make a god listen, and she struck a bargain with him. The gods gave the sun back, and in exchange, the Order of the Ravens was created.”  
“What’s the Order of the Ravens?”  
“The weird cult.”  
“Right. And what do they do?”  
“They keep the worship alive. Gods need worship to have power. So they let you live in daylight, but in exchange, a few people dedicate their lives beyond all expectation to worshipping the gods day and night. I mean, there's more to it, but that’s the simplistic explanation. It’s a lot of work! There are many gods out there.”

Neil was playing along now, his mind pretty made up as to what was happening. Obviously, he was dreaming. Might as well go along with it.

“How many?” he asked.  
“Thousands. But many died. Some couldn’t sustain themselves after the worship died out, and some were killed by other gods when they were mortal.”  
“How many is the Order of Crows worshipping, then?”  
“The Order of Ravens,” Nicky corrected. “They’re worshipping the Four and their guardians.”  
“You know I’ll ask,” Neil sighed, “Just tell me.”  
“The Four are the gods who took the sun, and the ones who struck the bargain. They saw an opportunity and they grabbed it. Nowadays, they’re the only gods with any real power.”  
“So they’re the bad guys?”  
“You could say that. Two of them are, at any rate. The two others are more like,” Nicky seemed to carefully choose his words, “…hostages?”  
“Right.”

Neil crossed his arms and leaned back on the chair, staring at one then the other, back and forth. Nicky asked:

“So?”  
“So what.”  
“You look... what’s the word-”  
“Pensive,” Renee offered.  
“Yeah. Pensive. Care to share your thoughts with us?”  
“I have no thoughts. I’m just waiting to wake up from this really weird dream.”

Nicky turned to Renee. “Now will you slap him?”  
“Still no, I’m afraid.”

Nicky sighed dramatically, then he walked (tiny steps) towards Neil, climbed on his arm and bit him as hard as he could.

“Aaaaaah!!!!”

Neil’s protest was loud and jerky, and it sent Nicky flying across the room. Mid-air, the miniature man vanished and reappeared on the table, looking only slightly disheveled.   
Neil stared once more, quiet disbelief turning into panicked acceptance. He could deny many things, but not the sharp pain on his forearm, where tiny teeth marks were branded in red.  
This was happening. 

He put his hands flat on the table, needing to feel something solid, something that existed in a reality familiar to him. It helped some. He took a deep breath in, then summarized:

“So gods are real. And other things are real too. And they took the sun. And the crow weirdos have to do weird shit to keep the world sunny. Is that it?”  
“Close enough,” Nicky accepted.   
“Right. Okay. That leaves me with one question: Why does this involve me?”  
“Because you’ve been marked. You’re the messenger.”  
“You keep saying that. What the fuck does it mean? In simple, concrete terms.”  
“It means you take the scroll and go to Castle Evermore, to the sanctuary. You tell them who the Chosen one is, then you plunge the scroll in the holy water. When you take it out, the quest will be spelled on it.”  
“How do I know who the Chosen is?”  
“You’ll know. I don’t know how, maybe it’ll say so on the scroll.”

Neil breathed in relief.   
“That’s it? I can do that. Castle Evermore is that creepy goth mansion with black bricks, right? I can be there in less than an hour. In and out, I could be back here before the evening.”

Nicky sucked air through his teeth and looked at Renee, whose eyes were not smiling anymore, quiet disapproval showing through them.

“What? What’s the trap?”  
“Well. See, you were right until the ‘in’ part.”  
“Just because you’re a half god or whatever doesn’t mean you have to speak in riddles all the time, you know. What does that mean?”  
“It means there’s no out. First you have to retrieve the Artifacts, and bring it to the sanctuary. And then, well ... You see, the messenger is meant to be sacrificed.”

 

Neil reacted on instinct. He bolted, and he was out the door before anyone could stop him. Not that Renee tried; she was looking at Nicky with the same quiet disapproval.  
Nicky shrugged.

“Come on! You know the laws of the land, don’t give me that look.”

Renee shrugged. “I do know. But you can’t blame him for not wanting to die, can you?”  
“I guess not. Ah! It doesn’t matter. I’m going after him, are you coming?”  
“How do you propose to find him? He’s long gone by now.”  
“The scroll, my witchy friend.”

A glimmer of comprehension lit through Renee’s eyes. Neil had been marked, and the scroll had born that mark. If you had magic and either the marked or the marker, finding the other part of that set wasn’t a very difficult task.

“Why would I come with you?”  
“Because you’re a sweetheart, and you’ll want to make sure I don’t hurt him.”

Renee nodded. That was a fair assessment of her persona.

“Plus,” Nicky added, “I have magic but even my magic can’t help me carry a binding object. They can’t be subject to enchantments, as you well know, and my current size proves problematic when trying to carry objects the regular way.”

Renee got up.   
“Where is it?” she simply asked.

 

_____

 

Finding Neil proved even easier than expected. The scroll started glowing a faint red the moment Renee put her hand to it, and when she closed her eyes, it told her where to go.  
They found him in a deserted laundromat that hadn’t been restored after the Darkness. He tried to bolt again as soon as he saw them, but Renee blocked the other entrance with a magical murmur.  
Neil turned to face them.

“If you think you can make me go to the slaughter willingly, then you’re crazier than you look. In what universe would anybody do that?”

Nicky emerged from Renee’s pocket and climbed on her shoulder. 

“All the messengers that were marked before you, everytime the flame was Renewed.”  
“But why?”  
“Because that’s what has to happen. If you don’t go, the sun never shines again. The earth starts freezing, humans start dying, and all of you go back underground. The other messengers died to save their loved ones, and all of humanity.”

Neil’s smirk had no joy to it. “Well, your gods made a terrible mistake marking me, then, didn't they? I have no loved ones, which makes the incentive pretty much non-applicable.”

Nicky sighed.  
“So you don’t care if you have to live underground?”  
“It’d suck, but I won’t get to live overground either way. I’ll pick whichever route keeps me breathing.”

Renee looked at Nicky. “If he doesn’t go, how long until the sun vanishes completely?”  
“I’m not sure,” Nicky shrugged. “This has never happened before.”

Neil was uncomfortably shuffling on his feet.   
“If I go-”  
“Yes?” Nicky jumped immediately.  
“Well, is there any way I can point at the Chosen person and then go do the quest thing and just not come back for the sacrifice part?”  
“I’m.. not actually sure.”  
“I mean, does the sacrifice count for anything? Is it necessary or do they just do it because they’re a cult of weirdos?”  
“I don’t know, kid! I’m not the collector of souls.”  
“Well, who would know, then?”

Nicky grinned.

“The collector of souls, I suppose.”  
“And who is that?”  
“He goes by many names in different faiths. Satan, Osiris, Hades, Shinigami. Some think he's the king of Hell, others, the angel of death."  
“So who is he, really?”  
“He’s the guardian of dead souls.”  
“And where do we find him?”  
“Well, in his domain, obviously.”

Neil blinked. “You’re suggesting we go to Hell.”

“Not Hell, kid. The Underworld.”

 

_____

 

That evening, at Castle Evermore, things were going even less smoothly. The mood had turned chaotic when, after the first six hours had passed, then six more, the Ravens had realized that perhaps the Messenger wasn’t coming, as ridiculous a notion as it sounded. The Ravens were confused, perhaps a bit outraged, but it was nothing compared to Riko, whose rage was only contained by the fact that he was not allowed to shed blood on the week of the Renewal. It made his anger amplified to levels so high his eye was twitching.   
Kevin did not particularly want to be around him, but he had no choice: The Ravens never went anywhere but in pairs. It was especially crucial for Riko and him, as they had to practice the Channelling at least once a day. Their energies needed to be familiar with each other, they needed to smell the same. There was a time when they were children where that thought did not leave a slimy feeling down Kevin’s spine. But then again, there was a time where Kevin thought Riko was his friend.   
(A single memory always flashed in front of his eyes whenever he thought of that time. Two little boys, in a dark bunker room, playing together, hushed voices and hushed laughter. This was before the Ravens, before the Master was the Master, before Kevin told his mother about the little boy who lived in the abandoned tunnels under Family, and how their hands glowed when they touched sometimes.)

He looked behind them, to the rest of the Ravens who were sat in pairs, silent for the most part, and further along, to the Master, who was talking on the phone. His voice was controlled but his eyes screamed murder. Kevin knew he was doing pre-emptive damage control, laying the grounds to make it look like this dawn sky was something they’d known about all along, in the grim case that it lasted more than the scheduled 24 hours. He didn’t know if it was working, but he did know he did not want to be around when the Master hung up.  
He walked up to Riko. 

“We should go to the pond.”  
“Why?”  
“Because it always makes you calmer. You’re angry. Which is understandable, I am too.”

(He wasn’t, but if Riko was not his friend, he surely was the person he knew best. Spend enough years near a demon, and you learn how they operate.  
Not that Kevin thought Riko was a demon. He wanted to, though.)

“But if the Messenger shows up and we’re too wired, we won’t be able to Channel. And that would possibly be worse than the Messenger being late.”  
“I know that,” Riko hissed. 

He took off towards the pond, and Kevin followed. The pond was behind the woods that surrounded the sanctuary. It was usually a nice walk, but there was nothing nice about following a time ticking bomb like Riko. Kevin was just starting to reconsider his life choices when the sound of something hitting the ground snapped him out of it.  
Riko collapsed.

Kevin stopped in his tracks, without thinking to react instantly. By the time he tried to run to him, a hand clasped his mouth from behind, and a voice whispered:

“Sorry, dude. It’s my first kidnapping, this might hurt a little.”

 

The last thing he saw was Riko’s limp body on the ground, his eyes struggling to stay open, then a sharp pain diffused in his neck, and everything went dark.


End file.
